Useful tips for web developers, bloggers, and WordPress users | Brian’s Tips and Tricks for Web Developers

Reboot Your Amazon EC2 Instance from the Management Console

July 1, 2013December 6, 2018 Sys Admin 0

Here are some beginner-level instructions on how to reboot your Amazon EC2 Instance through the AWS Management Console (you can also do it through

Assign Separate Domain Names to Multiple Sites on Amazon EC2 Running Bitnami

June 4, 2013February 10, 2018 Sys Admin 0

Here is the scenario: I used Bitnami to create a WordPress install on a free Amazon EC2 (Elastic Cloud Compute) micro instance (see this

How to Avoid and Deal with Mean Comments on Your Blog

May 23, 2013August 8, 2019 Blogging 10

Blogging can be a very personal experience. You’re baring your soul before the world. You are vulnerable. One of the worst things is to

Make Any WordPress Theme Responsive (Mobile-Friendly)

April 1, 2013February 10, 2018 WordPress 34

Here is the scenario: You’ve searched high and low and found the perfect WordPress theme for yourself or your client. But, there’s one big

Why Your Blog’s Copyright Notice Might Be Totally Wrong

March 24, 2013December 6, 2018 Blogging 0

We all want to protect the content that we create for our blogs and websites, right? Wouldn’t it be terrible if someone copied your

Twelve Ways to Massively Speed Up Your WordPress Site

March 12, 2013August 3, 2018 WordPress 18

Is your WordPress site loading slowly? There is a cool tool called Pingdom which creates waterfall charts so you can see exactly what is slowing

Facebook Page vs. Group: Which is Right for Your Organization?

February 5, 2013February 10, 2018 Blogging 109

Much has been written about the differences between Facebook Pages and Groups. When I needed to decide which to use for a project, I

Dynamically Resize an iFrame Using jQuery

January 11, 2013December 6, 2018 Front End 3

I was given the task to fix a website bug of the following nature: There is an iframe containing a “submit” button. When the

Trademark Your Website or Blog Name

November 30, 2012February 10, 2018 Blogging 16

One of my blogs reached a level of popularity and income where I started thinking about trademarking the name of the site. I figured

Using Go Daddy Server with Different Domain Registrar

June 29, 2012June 22, 2019 Sys Admin 16

This is a pretty common thing to do, right? You have hosting at Go Daddy but your domain is registered with someone else, like

Hide Your Visits from Google Analytics

June 11, 2012December 6, 2018 Developer 9

When I visit my own websites, I don’t want Google Analytics to count those visits. Google provides two ways to exclude your own visits,

Add Your Website Icon to the Browser Tab

May 14, 2012August 7, 2019 Front End 43

The cool little icon that shows up in each web page’s browser tab is called a “favicon”. Adding this tiny detail really gives your

Fix PHP date() Timezone Warnings

May 10, 2012December 6, 2018 Developer 0

After I upgraded from PHP version 5.2 to 5.3, my websites exploded with PHP warning messages similar to this: Warning: date() [function.date]: It is

Make a Background of an Image Transparent

May 8, 2012December 6, 2018 Front End 5

Often times you’ll have an image, perhaps a logo, that you want to use on a website, and you’ll want that image to have

Make a WordPress Post Stay at the Top of the Page

February 22, 2012December 6, 2018 WordPress 1

Most WordPress landing pages either contain static information or the latest posts. But what if you want the both worlds – a landing page

How to Pick a Money-Making Blog Topic

February 18, 2012December 6, 2018 Blogging 0

We’ve all heard of bloggers who pull down six-figure incomes. It sounds great: work at home writing about some arcane topic from time to

Add Custom Fonts to Your Website

January 17, 2012February 10, 2018 Front End 0

Are you tired of using the same old boring web fonts? Without describing all of the browser compatibility problems in detail, here’s a quick